


City Lights on the Water

by the_dala



Series: City Lights [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, M/M, Terminal Illnesses, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four ways that Jim and Bones spend December 23rd, strung together by tiny little lights. (Modern-day AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	City Lights on the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for space_wrapped on LJ. This is a modern-day AU with discussion of teenagers engaging in drinking and consensual sex; note that the underage content in this one is very mild, but the rating does go up in later fics in the series (when Jim is just shy of turning eighteen). And yes, the title is from Taylor Swift (don't judge me!)
> 
> Archiving my old Star Trek fic from LiveJournal - this was originally published December 13th, 2010

 

****  
 _December 20th, 2010_

 

“Hey, this is Len, I either can’t pick up the phone right now or I don’t want to talk to you - probably both. You know what to do.”

BEEP

“Charming even in absentia, Bones. How did your last final go? It was this afternoon, right? You’re probably crashed out snoring with the phone blinking right next to your head. Anyway, Scotty wanted me to ask you about the party - he said he’d text but you know he forgets shit like that. Let me know when you’re getting into town so we can go shopping for booze. Oh, and Hiraku says hi and Nyota says to turn my damn phone off before I get thrown out of class. Like the teachers actually give a shit when it‘s this close to Christmas break. Call me back when you reanimate. Kirk out!”

 

 

****  
 _December 23rd, 2003_

 

Jim really didn’t have any idea where he was headed when he wheeled his bike out of the garage. Any other bright, clear winter day after a week of rain he’d have packed a sandwich, a book, and a blanket and gone over to the park by the middle school or the lake in Barnett Hills. But he hadn’t even grabbed his house key. He’d have to jimmy the back window open if no one was home when he got back. Sam would never hear him knocking if he was locked in his room blasting the stereo, like he nearly always was these days. And Frank - Jim hoped Frank _was_ gone, even if it was just to McGinty’s for a few hours. Then he might talk Sam into making some mac and cheese, playing Xbox, maybe even watching one of those old stop-motion holiday specials. Jim thought they were dumb now, but he had been terrified of Burgermeister Meisterburger when he was little. Sam would tease him but always let Jim crowd up against him on the couch when the Burgermeister started threatening villagers.

He wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking Mom would be home. Her last speech at the conference was this afternoon. Jim had already checked the weather; there was a big storm rolling through Michigan tomorrow. She’d said she would try to get a flight home but he could hear the doubt in her voice over the phone.

The trees lining the street blurred as Jim pedaled faster, wind streaking through his hair and making his eyes tear up.

That was probably why he didn’t see the boy until it was too late to avoid hitting him.

Jim heard a shout of alarm as he tried to simultaneously brake and swerve between the boy and a car in the driveway. He must’ve ended up flying over the handlebars, because the next thing he knew he was lying in a heap on the ground with his bike crumpled on top of him.

“Jesus, kid, watch where you’re going! Are you okay?”

He blinked as a hunter green sweater entered his field of vision. Cool fingers ghosted over the top of his head, his neck, down his arms - checking him for injuries, he realized as the fog began to clear from his brain. The fingers trailed down his legs to his knees and stopped. Jim hissed at a sudden throb of pain and glanced down. His right knee was bleeding freely on the ragged edges of his ripped jeans.

“Yeah, you skinned your knee all to hell,” said the other boy, frowning. He probed around the edges of the wound and Jim bit the insides of his cheeks, determined not to cry in front of a total stranger. “Can you bend it?” His voice was gruff but his touch was light.

Jim nodded, gingerly flexing his right leg. The road rash stung pretty bad and he would definitely be bruised all over, but nothing seemed broken. The boy observed him with an almost professional calm that dampened the shaky, sick feeling in the pit of Jim’s stomach. He had brown hair that was slightly shaggy and kept falling into his eyes. He looked to be around Sam’s age, maybe a little older - Jim didn’t notice how tall he was until he straightened up from his crouch.

“C’mon,” he said, extending a hand. “I‘ve got bandages and stuff in the house.”

Jim met his eyes for the first time. They were a warm light brown with bright flecks of green. He didn’t actually think he had anything to worry about, accepting an invitation into a strange house - there were cars in all the neighbors’ driveways, he could hear some kids laughing in a nearby backyard, and the boy was only a couple of years older than himself. But it was the kindness in those hazel eyes that made up Jim’s mind. He reached up and let himself be hauled to his feet.

Even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t about to be axe murdered and buried under the porch, Jim’d had enough cuts and scrapes in an active childhood to be wary of the little brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“It’s not very deep, I probably just need a band-aid…”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a baby. It needs to be disinfected first.”

“How d’you know that?” Jim demanded, bristling a little.

“My dad’s a doctor. Lean over the tub - here, you can hold onto me.“ Jim was proud of himself for not making a noise as the peroxide bubbled over his skinned knee. And if he squeezed the other boy’s hand tight, well, it hadn’t been his idea.

He breathed out through his nose as the boy applied Neosporin and a square bandage, impressed at his nonchalance. Sam would’ve left him to fend for himself with a washcloth and some band-aids; blood grossed him out.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Leonard McCoy,” the boy replied, rolling Jim’s jeans back down and making him bend his knee to make sure the bandage was stuck on. “Yours?”

Jim always hesitated before he introduced himself. He’d watched too many faces change after they realized he was _that_ Kirk boy, especially around this time of year. The local news channels still aired In Memoriam segments for the twenty-eight patients and three firefighters who had died in the Kelvin Clinic fire. A handful of reporters had even swarmed the house last November, determined to interview the Kirk family for a tenth anniversary special. Mom had been out of town but Frank was around to chase them off. It was one of the few nice things he’d done for Jim as a stepfather. Of course, he and Mom hadn’t been married very long at that point. It was only later than Jim began to suspect his hostility had as much to do with resenting his new wife’s dead hero husband as protecting Jim and Sam.

This time there was no reaction, no recognition, no pity, and Jim quickly learned why: Leonard and his father had only moved to town a few months ago. His grandma’s farm in Georgia sounded way cooler than some boring suburb inland of San Francisco. Encouraged by Jim’s curiosity, Leonard took him to his room, which was much tidier than Jim’s own. Jim sat on the floor with his bandaged leg stretched out while Leonard dug out a blue photo album from his bookshelf. They flipped through photos of rolling hills in autumn and a sun-dappled swimming hole and a younger Leonard riding his favorite horse. It was clear that the pictures meant a lot to him. There were other people scattered through them - a tall dark-haired man who had to be his father, his laughing grandmother, cousins and other relatives. It took Jim awhile to realize that the person behind the camera must’ve been his mother. He wanted to ask about her, but felt weird bringing it up when Leonard hadn’t.

When they came upon a picture of the farmhouse draped in colorful lights, Leonard snapped the book closed. “Forgot what I was doing before you decided to crash your bike in my driveway.”

Jim followed him back down to the living room. There was a big fir tree under the window with cardboard boxes stacked beside it.

He eyed the tree skeptically. “Uh, you do know it’s already the day before Christmas Eve, right?”

“Yeah, smartass, I do,” Leonard replied, and Jim grinned to hear his Southern accent draw out the vowels. He knelt down to pull the lid off a box, pulling out a loop of little white lights. “I just found the boxes this morning. They were mixed up with some old stuff of my -” He broke off abruptly. “Well, anyway, I told my dad I’d have them up before he gets home.”

His voice got rough around the edges and he bent over another box, avoiding Jim’s eyes. Jim bit his lip. He should probably go home; his knee hurt too badly to ride his bike, and it would take longer walking it. But there was something kind of sad about stringing Christmas lights all by yourself. He supposed that was why they hadn’t gotten a tree this year. Frank might’ve bought one if Jim asked, but he wasn’t much for decorating and Mom had been gone for two weeks.

“Can I help?”

Leonard looked up at him - a little wary, a little shy. For a second Jim thought he’d tell him to go home, that somebody must be missing him. He didn’t feel like explaining about what things were like at his house, at least not now - for some reason he really wanted this boy to like him.

Then Leonard shrugged. “Sure, if you want. My dad can drive you back later.”

Jim smiled at him, reached for a particularly tangled strand of lights, and managed to trip over the tree skirt in the process. Leonard caught his arm before he could land on his skinned knee.

“Just try not to break any bones, okay?” he said, raising an eyebrow. Jim stuck his tongue out and opened another box.

 

 

****  
 _December 21nd, 2010_

 

_**LHMcCoy** is Online._

**MJT3K:** hey jackass, you never called me back

 **MJT3K:** i poked you on facebook and everything

 **LHMcCoy:** Sorry, got really busy. Finals suck. Work sucks.

Facebook sucks.

 **MJT3K:** oooookay mr. scrooge

 **MJT3K:** but anyway you’re coming to the party right?

 **LHMcCoy:** Scotty’s party?

 **MJT3K:** uh YEAH, scotty’s party. like there’s another one?

the christmas eve’s eve party he’s thrown every december 23rd for the last five years

the party where you always end up getting really southern and rambling about your grandma’s cooking

the party where i got completely shitfaced and threw up on you

the party where spock and uhura hooked up for the first time

 **LHMcCoy:** Oh please, it was one kiss.

 **MJT3K:** under the mistletoe! which YOU helped me put up!

 **LHMcCoy:** What can I say, I like seeing drunken idiots make asses of themselves.

 **MJT3K:** no you don’t, you love all those cheesy holiday traditions

 **LHMcCoy:** I guess.

 **MJT3K:** so you’re definitely coming, right? even if you don’t want to come early, i can help scotty set things up and then come pick you up. which means you can drink whatever you want

i hope you appreciate all the sacrifices i make for you

bones?

hellooooooo

wtf

earth to leonard

seriously just tell me you’re coming

haha that’s what she said

 **LHMcCoy:** Jim I’m busy right now, I don’t have time to babysit your hyper ass over the internet

Hey

_**MJT3K is Away** _

**LHMcCoy:** Damn it.

I’m sorry, kid. Of course I’ll be at the party - should be home by 4, you can drop by then.

Can’t promise I’ll be in the Christmas spirit though.

 **MJT3K:** fine. i’m immune to your grinchiness by now anyway.

_**LHMcCoy is Away** _

**MJT3K:** FUCK IT. text when you land k?

 

 

****  
 _December 23rd, 2006_

 

The only reason Scotty agreed to invite eighth graders to his party on the night before Christmas Eve was that they swore not to touch the keg. Jim had been pretty sure he was kidding about signing an oath in blood, but in any case he wouldn’t need to - he had Bones. Bones had promised to check Jim’s breath every fifteen minutes for the scent of alcohol or any attempt to cover up the scent of alcohol (“So no anchovy and roasted garlic pizza for dinner, then?”). Technically he applied the same threat to Hikaru, Nyota, and Christine, though it was hardly necessary as the girls made their disdain for peer pressure clear and Hikaru was scared to death of Bones. So mostly the dire consequences were for Jim, as usual, with the addendum that Bones would personally drag him out by the balls if he drank so much as a sip of beer. Jim was pretty sure he was not kidding about that one.

That was why he raided Frank’s liquor cabinet to choke down the rest of his scotch before he left the house.

By the time he had walked the half-mile to the Scotts’ place, Jim was feeling pretty freaking awesome. His spirits were further raised by the fact that a very pretty blonde sophomore answered the door instead of anybody who knew him. Maybe he was a little too enthusiastic in greeting her, but she giggled at his attempt to kiss her hand and waved him inside instead of kicking him out. Jim followed her for about five seconds before she went to the basement door. The sound of Scotty belting “Good King Wenceslas” at the top of his lungs floated up. That was…not good, Jim decided at length. Scotty might not be able to tell he’d been drinking - he thought he was playing it off pretty well - but if Scotty was there, Bones would be there. And if Bones was there, he’d kick Jim’s ass from here to Atlanta.

Besides, the stairs wouldn’t stop wobbling.

So Jim wandered over to the back patio, all strung with those big old-fashioned colored lights, where some kids were huddled outside in a cloud of smoke. They were all older than Jim, but that didn’t seem to matter so much now. He was leaning against the sliding glass door and thinking he’d ask one of them for a cigarette - that guy with the gray eyes, Gary Something, was in Sam’s class and had come over to their house for a science project once - when a shadow blocked the porch light.

Jim blinked muzzily until the shadow resolved itself into a person. A big, lumpy, sneering person.

“Where’s your boyfriend, Kirk?”

Devon Matthews was a head taller and thirty pounds heavier than any other boy in their school; he’d been held back when they were kids. Because he had been an asshole in fourth grade, and he was an asshole now.

“Fuck you, Cupcake,” Jim muttered, enjoying the way Matthews’ face still turned red at the nickname. Served him right for eating all the cupcakes at fifth grade graduation and puking on the awards podium. Jim’s mom had made some of those cupcakes.

“No thanks, Kirk. Skinny and hairless might be McCoy’s type, but it ain’t mine.” He blew smoke into Jim‘s face and flicked ash on his shoes.

It wasn’t like the insults were anything new. It wasn’t like other people hadn’t wondered why Jim and Bones were friends when they were four years apart. It wasn’t like Jim had ever done much damage the few times he and Matthews had gotten into fistfights over the years.

But on top of everything else Jim was trying not to deal with tonight, it was too much. Something inside of him snapped.

Next thing he knew they were crashing back across the patio. Matthews was bigger and stronger but Jim was abruptly furious and too loose in his skin. He got in a few good blows to Matthews’ substantial gut and his face before he stumbled - somewhere along the way they‘d gotten tangled up in Christmas lights. It gave Matthews time to recover. Jim heard a few pops as he crushed light bulbs beneath his feet, then a girl shrieking as pain exploded behind his left eye.

Everything got kind of blurry after that. Someone hauled Jim back and he struggled until he realized it was Bones. He saw a pair of burly, reddish-haired arms circle Matthews’ heaving chest from behind, though nothing else of Scotty was visible. Some other junior boys closed in on them to further contain Matthews as he spat blood in Jim’s direction. Out of his half-closed eye Jim thought he saw an ashen-faced Gaila clutching at Hikaru’s arm - yeah, it was definitely Hikaru taking a halting step toward them, his eyes wide. That was as far as he got because Bones was hauling Jim through the patio door, past the throngs of people who’d run upstairs to see the fight, and into the Scotts’ bathroom.

“You can be so stupid sometimes, kid.” Bones’ voice was a harsh rasp to Jim’s aching head even as he wiped carefully at the blood on Jim’s chin, his hands gentle and steady. “Matthews is a delinquent punk who’ll probably end up with a rap sheet longer than his brother’s, but you have got to learn to ignore his bullshit.”

“But Bones - Bones, he said -” Jim grabbed at Bones’ arms, feeling like he might fall off the toilet seat. He couldn’t remember what Matthews had said but he was sure it had been appalling.

Bones’ brows drew together in a thunderous line as he leaned in for a closer look. “Christ, Jim, are you drunk? Goddammit, I told you not to-”

“’M sorry,” Jim whispered, and he threw up.

He must’ve repeated it, more than once, because Bones was saying softly, “It’s okay, Jim, it’s okay.” Jim pressed into his side - when had they ended up on the floor? - and closed his eyes. Bones brushed a cold washcloth over his forehead once more before setting it down.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the muffled thump of music from the party downstairs. Finally Jim realized it was soft cotton under his cheek, not wool, and lifted his chin.

“Your sweater,” he said, pointing at the balled-up lump in the corner. His hand was still shaking a little.

“Yeah, you got it pretty good.”

“Sorry,” Jim said again, weakly.

Bones shook his head, running the washcloth through his hands. “Don’t worry about it. I'm sure Aunt Phyllis‘ll send me another one just as itchy.”

He was being too nice, Jim reflected. Of course he’d clean Jim up after the fight, but usually he’d have gone right back to yelling at Jim for getting himself into these messes. He’d have thought not being yelled at would be a welcome change, but…a part of him liked that Bones got so worked up over him. That he cared enough to yell. The silence was unnerving. For all Jim knew he was sitting here thinking that he’d finally had enough of a little kid trailing after him like a lonely puppy, a revelation that Jim had been awaiting for years.

“So,” Bones said after awhile, and Jim fought down another roil of sickness that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He cleared his throat and continued, in a voice so quiet it barely stirred the air, “I haven’t seen Sam around school for a few days.” It wasn’t a question.

Jim stared straight ahead at the cabinet, relief flooding through him even as he felt tears prick at his eyes. He‘d told himself that he wasn‘t going to deal with this tonight, but it was like earlier when he could feel his body rebelling and he couldn‘t stop it, could only watch himself lose control. He knew now that this was the real reason he’d wanted to sneak into the party undetected - he never could lie to Bones.

“Yeah. He - I think this time he’s not coming back.”

Bones made a low noise in his throat and laid his hand over Jim’s knee. It was like he felt the simple touch echo everywhere on his skin. A shudder ran through him. His head might be clearer and his stomach might be empty but clearly he wasn‘t exactly sober yet.

“Screw him,” Jim said with sudden vehemence to cover his weird reaction. “Who runs away during Christmas? Mom’s home this year, and Frank’s finally gone - we could’ve had a good Christmas, you know? I don’t need a brother anyway,” he declared, scrubbing a hand across his face, heedless of his split lip and black eye. The pain helped him feel more anchored, less likely to go limp and sink down onto Bones‘ lap. “I’ve got you.”

Bones was silent. The words hung there, stark and awkward and too honest; and all Jim could think to do was drown them out with more.

“I mean obviously you’re not my brother, but…you’re my best friend, Bones. I know I’m not yours, because you - you’re on the football team and you’re awesome, and you’re gonna be this amazing doctor. God, you’re going to _college_ in like eight months and I’m not even in high school yet. I’m just this dumb kid who gets in trouble all the time and ruins your parties. I can’t even -”

“Jim, shut _up_.” He shifted, moving to kneel in front of Jim. Fuck, he was glaring. He _was_ pissed.

Taking him by the shoulders, Bones gave him a little shake. “That’s not true, all right? I -” He sighed and sat back on his heels, raking a hand through his hair. Jim’s fingers twitched with a desire to straighten it, or mess it up more, he wasn’t sure which.

Bones met Jim’s eyes squarely, his face softening from its usual stubborn set. “You’re my best friend too.”

Jim felt his chest tighten and wondered when Matthews had gotten in a shot to his ribs.

“That’s kinda pathetic, you know,” he said, drawing his legs up.

The twinge deepened as a corner of Bones’ mouth lifted. “Yeah, sometimes I think so.”

He moved over to sit next to Jim again. The porcelain of the tub was chilly at Jim’s back but Bones gave off heat like a sun. He always did that, especially in winter. Jim had said once that it was that whole “you can take the boy out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the boy” thing. Either that or it was something he got from his mother, like his green-tinted eyes and the sweetness he tried to conceal with sarcasm.

Jim drew in a breath, feeling the ache sharpen even as he let it out in something like a hoarse laugh. “Damn, Bones, I’m gonna miss you next year.”

“Me too, brat.” Some of the tension had lifted from Bones’ face, and his voice was lighter. “But I’ll be back for breaks, and you can come visit.”

“Really?” Jim had already looked up the visitor policies and freshman dorm floor plans at Ole Miss, but Bones didn’t need to know that.

“Of course.” Bones nudged him and shot him a sidelong grin. “You can sleep in the closet.”

“Wow, Bones, thanks,” Jim drawled.

“Anytime, kid.” He patted Jim's shoulder as he stood. "You sit tight and I'll go see if Scotty has any frozen peas for that eye."

Jim wrapped his arms around his legs and propped his chin on his knees, wondering if he was still drunk. He had to be. It was just that no one had told him about this part of it - how it would hurt when Bones looked at him or touched him, and how Jim would never want him to stop.

He didn’t think he’d be touching the liquor cabinet again any time soon.

 

 

****  
 _December 23rd, 2010_

 

“ _Simply having a wonderful Christmas_ -”

Jim makes a face at the radio as he kills the engine. He wouldn’t mind the constant barrage of holiday music in these last few weeks if all the stations didn’t insist on playing ntohing but _crappy_ Christmas songs. To get the bad taste out out of his mind, he whistles “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” as he lopes up to the McCoys’ front door.

No one answers Jim’s first ring, or his second, or his fifteenth. Of course no one answered the house phone either, though that wasn’t unusual - David McCoy tends to screen calls unless they come from the hospital.

Frowning, Jim walks across the porch to peek in the windows. He can’t see anyone in the living room or the kitchen; the study door is open, which means it's likewise unoccupied.

He sits down on the porch swing, feeling put-out. It's nearly seven and Bones’ flight got in at 3:15. Even if he went out for an early dinner with his father, which Jim doubts, they would’ve taken David’s car, not Bones’ beat-up old Taurus. Jim is eternally loyal to the Taurus, but even he has to admit that she's past her prime. David wouldn‘t have the patience to drive Bones’ neglected car to the airport or anywhere else. And yet here is the Lexus sitting in the driveway.

Scuffing the worn wooden porch with his shoes, Jim checks his phone one last time. While Bones might have been busy lately, he still promised Jim their usual December 23rd routine. Jim could drive a couple freeway stops over and buy liquor with his fake ID, but that's not really the point. It's been tough getting through senior year without having seen his best friend since August; Bones even spent Thanksgiving elsewhere this year.

At the same time, he doesn’t feel like he can push too hard. It took so long to repair their friendship after Jim nearly fucked it up for good; he can’t risk losing Bones again.

Well, he'll go to the party on his own and hope Bones shows up. They can talk things out there. Christmas song forgotten, Jim glances in the window once more before returning to his car.

 

 

****  
 _December 23rd, 2008_

 

When Bones said he wasn’t coming home for Christmas his sophomore year, he gave some excuse about a biochem project and extra shifts at the student health center. Jim repeatedly called this bullshit until he finally admitted that he’d had a huge fight with his father, though he refused to give details. So he got permission as an RA to stay in his dorm over winter break, bought train tickets to his grandmother’s place for actual Christmas, and told Jim he was sorry but that was that.

Jim was afraid he might’ve done something stupid right up until he knocked on Bones’ door. His mother certainly thought so, if not in so many words. She’d declared they had to “do Christmas right this year,” which meant she had a new boyfriend and wanted Jim to behave himself. Part of Jim thought this was all phony and reacted with scorn, but another part of him read the hopefulness in her eyes. Nothing had ever gone quite right during the holidays and communication with Sam was still strained, but maybe this time she deserved a chance. So he’d discussed the trip with her beforehand instead of just buying a plane ticket with the money he’d saved since he started working at the auto shop last summer. She was upset but Jim was determined, and in the end they settled on four days in Mississippi with Jim home by dinner on the twenty-fourth. She even chipped in with some of her frequent flyer miles as an early Christmas gift. He just somehow neglected to tell her that the whole thing was a surprise for Bones - and Bones didn’t always cope well with surprises.

Bones opened the door, phone cradled against one ear, and his eyes went wide. Jim waved with the coil of mini-lights wrapped around his wrist.

“Surprise?”

Bones opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before a grin spread across his face. “Hey, I’ll have to call you back,” he said to the person on the other line. Jim let out the breath he’d been holding and grinned back at him, probably stupidly.

The next couple of days were all Bones, all the time. He had not only his room but practically the whole campus to himself. He showed Jim around with so much enthusiasm that Jim was immediately suspicious. Under the cheerful holiday façade he seemed tired and stressed, despite the fact that the rumored research project never came up. Jim hadn’t really believed he had this big assignment over the break, but he was still taken aback - pre-med was a major workload and Bones always brought tons of textbooks back home on breaks. He did have to work at the health center, but his shifts were few and short.

So even while they strung lights, made eggnog from scratch (hundred-year-old McCoy family recipe, Bones claimed), and raided the holiday movie section at Blockbuster, Jim kept an eye on Bones. They only had a few days, but Bones wasn’t very good at keeping his emotions under wraps.

Jim could wait him out any day. In the meantime, he got to make Bones laugh and bicker and sling an arm over his shoulders while they wandered across the quad. It still made his chest ache. He had long since figured out that this had nothing to do with drinking and everything to do with the fact that he was completely, utterly, hopelessly in love with his best friend.

Jim had learned a lot about himself in the process of coming to terms with this over the past year or so. At first he entirely failed to deal by dating as many girls as would go out with a scrawny freshman. His stock rose after he made the baseball team and filled out a little over the summer, and he’d gotten pretty far with a couple of them. He and Gaila had had a standing Saturday night date for awhile, provided neither of them had other partners. It was fun but it didn’t stop him dreaming about Bones’ mouth and long legs and stupid sardonic eyebrows.

So he’d tried other guys, working with a more limited pool and a lot more discretion. First he had made out with Hikaru on Halloween, which had been nice but nothing they wanted to talk about in the morning; they were kind of drunk and Hikaru was nursing a crush on the new Russian kid (who was only fourteen but hey, Jim wasn’t in a position to judge). Then he’d given Gary Mitchell a hand job after practice one day. That was okay, but when he came in his pants before Gary even touched him because he was imagining how Bones would feel in his hand, he figured he was pretty much done for.

Keeping all of this from Bones took more energy and effort and heartbreak than Jim had thought possible. But he did it because he had to - because he couldn’t stand it if Bones found out and hated him. So he got really good at compartmentalizing his feelings, especially on the couple of occasions he’d visited Bones at college. True, this visit was the hardest yet, mostly because they were alone in a bedroom with no parents down the hall and no roommate snoring a few feet away. Jim spent each night in a sleeping bag on the absent roommate’s bed, torturing himself with thoughts of stretching out to touch Bones' cheek, of getting up to crawl into bed with him and wake him with sleepy kisses. Worrying about whatever was going on with this weird holiday exile was actually a good distraction.

Bones finally cracked on the twenty-third - appropriate, Jim thought, even though they weren’t going to make Scotty’s party this year. They’d been working on the last of the eggnog and Bones’ precious bottle of Woodford Reserve. Bones had been mother-henning Jim’s alcohol intake the whole visit but tonight he poured a little more into both glasses, enough that they were feeling warm and easy and a little tipsy. They were on Bones’ bed, Bones leaning back against the corner and Jim with his legs hanging over the edge. His head ended up resting by Bones’ hip; once Bones had reached down and touched his hair to get his attention. To distract himself from this he was staring at the Christmas lights over their heads, so hard that he saw little fireworks of red and green and blue when he blinked.

“I just don’t know if it’s what I wanna do with my life,” Bones suddenly burst out.

Jim frowned and tilted his head back to look at him, having lost the thread of the conversation. Last thing he remembered contributing was a rant about that new kid Spock pointing out a flaw in his chemistry paper in front of the entire class. “What?”

“Bein’ a doctor.” Bones bounced one leg on the bed a little. “I’m not saying I _don’t_ want to, not for sure, it’s just…I’m only nineteen, for fuck’s sake. How am I supposed to know who I’ll be in ten years?”

“You aren’t,” Jim replied.

Bones scowled, tucking his arms into his sweatshirt pouch. “Yeah, well, tell that to my dad.”

Jim was quiet for a moment, wondering if a little cartoon light bulb was actually visible over his head. This made sense to him even though he couldn’t say he had any experience with paternal expectations. The simple fact of the matter was that David McCoy was hard on his son. Maybe it had been different when Bones was young, but by the time Jim met him David was fairly inflexible. Bones said that his father had closed in on himself for a long time after his mother's death. His grandmother more or less raised him for nearly a year. When David came out of what Bones called his sleepwalking stage of grief, he’d gotten his back up at his family’s implication that he couldn’t take care of his son on his own - and moved across the country in large part to prove them wrong.

He cared for Bones in his own way, Jim believed - it was just that his own way wasn’t very good at expressing love, or pride, or any of the things Bones deserved just for being Bones. They clashed over differences in personality and temperment more than concrete issues. Over the years, Jim had formed a good enough picture of Bones' mother to realize that he got a lot of his disposition from her. He might pretend to be a world-weary misanthrope (Jim often said he was nineteen going on fifty-nine); but he was also, in Scotty’s words, a big old teddy bear. He wore his heart on his sleeve and it was one of the things Jim loved most about him. It was also why he thought Bones was born to be a healer, aside from all the times he’d proven his skill with disinfectant and band-aids.

“What do you think?” Bones was asking, eyeing Jim with some trepidation. “You think I’m stupid, talking about changing my major this late?”

Jim twisted around on the bed until he was sitting and facing Bones. “You are _not_ stupid,” he said firmly. Bones crossed his legs, lining his elbows up with his knees. He still looked troubled. Jim allowed himself the briefest touch to his arm, telling himself it was for Bones’ comfort and not his own desire.

“You know I think you’d make a great doctor,” he continued, staring Bones down until he met his gaze. “But you should make that decision for your own reasons, not mine or your father’s or anyone else’s - and you sure as hell don’t have to work out the rest of your life right now.”

Bones didn’t look entirely reassured, but he bit his bottom lip in a wry smile. “It’s - it feels good to get this out. Don’t really have anybody else to talk about it with.” He leaned forward and grasped Jim’s wrist.

Jim’s heart flipped over in his chest. _Hypocrite_ , he berated himself silently. If he could stake the rest of his life on this, right now, he would.

_And why can’t I? What am I so afraid of?_

He closed the space between them and kissed Bones.

For an endless moment everything was still. Bones’ lips were soft and chapped and perfect under his own. Jim pressed a little harder and thought for a moment that - oh, _please_ -

Bones jerked back, his hand lifting to his mouth, his brows shooting up to his hairline. “Jim,” he said hoarsely. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jim fell back to earth.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, feeling a babble coming on but unable to stop it. If babbling would take that look from Bones’ eyes, then he’d babble. “Shit - I’m sorry, _shit_.” He pushed himself off the bed, backing into Bones’ desk chair.

“I…” Bones was up against the wall again, staring at Jim, his face turning red. “Jim, I’m not - you’re _fifteen_ , Jesus...” Which was unfair, given that he’d be sixteen in twelve days, but somehow Jim didn’t think Bones would accept such a rebuttal.

He swayed a little on his feet, clutching his head in one hand. “I’m drunk, okay?” He wasn’t, and Bones knew he wasn’t, but it was easy enough to fake the symptoms. He certainly felt like throwing up.

“I have a girlfriend,” Bones said, his eyes darting to the side.

Jim tried to laugh, but people who’d been kicked in the gut didn’t usually have the breath for it. He had probably missed the warnings on Facebook; he hadn‘t gone on for weeks because he always ended up Facebook-stalking Bones. This once he wished he could‘ve been just a bit more creepy and pathetic.

“Me too,” he gasped out. “Gaila and me, four months.”

Bones rubbed the back of his neck. He still looked shell-shocked but there was some relief there, too. “Okay. Then…”

“Then we just forget about this,” Jim said. He fetched up against the desk and sank down onto it. “Please?”

Now the relief was washing over Bones’ face. “Um, yeah. That’s - that’d be good.” He tried to laugh, too, without much more success. He gestured to the desk, then to his mug, and finally to the bottle on the radiator as if he’d hit upon a solution. “You want any more, or…?”

“No thanks,” Jim said, distantly pleased that his voice had returned to more or less its normal pitch. “I think I’m gonna go to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Bones agreed, nodding vigorously. “You, uh, you go to sleep. I’m gonna shower first.”

He was out of the room in five seconds. Jim wasn’t even sure he’d grabbed a towel. He rolled himself into his sleeping bag, facing the wall, and had perfected his impression of being dead asleep by the time Bones returned and shut off the Christmas lights.

 

 

****  
 _December 23, 2010_

 

Bones shows up two hours late to Scotty’s party. By then Jim has called him three times and sent four texts, none of which he answered. He catches Jim’s eye from across the hall, his expression unreadable.

Jim turns back to Spock. “So anyway, how hot are the chicks at Harvard?” he says, loud enough for Bones to hear.

Spock looks dubious at this transparent shift in conversation. “I fall to see the relevance of the female population’s attractiveness to the overall quality of my education.”

“Uh-huh,” Jim says absently, glancing back over his shoulder just in time to see Bones slipping through the basement door.

While Bones is downstairs, he stays upstairs. When Bones comes back upstairs, he retreats to the patio. Nyota comes up to him ten minutes later, her boot heels clicking across the bricks.

“Did I tell you you look gorgeous?” Jim asks with total sincerity. She’s wearing a red satin dress that fits her like a glove. He can see Spock watching her from inside, though they supposedly broke up last summer. Jim isn’t at all surprised. He’d bet his college money that she’ll pick Williams over Stanford in the spring. And he hopes Scotty remembered to hang the mistletoe in that alcove under the stairs.

“You did, I still don’t care,” she says crisply. “What’s wrong with Len?”

Jim shrugs, sipping his beer.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Are you two fighting again?”

“No, we’re just not joined at the hip like everybody seems to think. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we actually don’t braid each other’s hair and tell each other all our secrets.”

Nyota tucks her own long hair behind her ear, unmoved by his sarcasm. “If it’s something you did, you need to apologize. He seems…” She shakes her head, looking worried. “Wrecked.”

“I’ll bet he is.”

“I don’t mean drunk,” she insists, smacking his arm. It hurts more than he’s willing to let on. “Although he’s getting there. It’s - he’s really upset about something, Jim. And he won’t talk to me.”

He contemplates the last sip of cheap keg brew in his cup. He‘s been nursing it for an hour; for some reason nothing in Scotty‘s impressive stash tempted him tonight. “He’s ignoring my calls, Nyota. That’s a pretty clear sign.”

“Yes,” she replies, cocking her head and fixing him with a disturbingly Spock-like eyebrow. “It’s a sign that something’s wrong.”

Sighing, Jim drains the cup and hands it to her. “I hate that you’re always right.”

“But I love that you’re always wrong,” she replies, and kisses his cheek as he goes.

Bones isn’t in the basement, or in the living room, the kitchen, or upstairs bleating about STDs to the couple who inevitably sneaks into the guest room. He’s outside by the Taurus, fumbling with his keys and cursing.

Real alarm starts to course through Jim’s blood. Eleanor McCoy was killed by a drunk driver. Bones never, ever gets behind the wheel when he’s been drinking, nor does he let anyone else. Last year he used up half a tank of gas on four separate designated driver trips.

“Give me those,” Jim snaps, snatching the keys out of Bones’ hand.

Bones glares at him and takes a swig from the bottle in his hand. It’s water, which is good, and he isn’t nearly as drunk as Jim first thought - but he’s still in no condition to be driving home. And all at once Jim is in no condition to put up with this shit any longer.

“Okay, what the fuck did I do?”

Blinking in owlish confusion, Bones says, “Huh?”

Jim spreads his arms wide. “Obviously you’re royally pissed off - you’d have to be, to be grumpy at Nyota - and since it seems to have started with me, please just fucking tell me what I did so I can say I’m sorry. Or tell you to go to hell because you deserved whatever it was I allegedly did.”

Bones sags against the car door. “It’s not you,” he mutters, casting his gaze down at the ground.

“Then what is it?” Jim steps up to him, though not too close. He learned that lesson well.

“Can we…” Bones looks up at him, dark hair spilling across his brow. Without the righteous glow of irritation lighting his eyes he looks downright haggard. “Can we go somewhere?”

Jim purses his lips, twirling the keys once on his thumb. “Yeah, sure,” he says after a minute. He walks around to the Taurus’ driver’s side. “Any place in particular?” He can hear that his voice is still tight. Bones shakes his head. Jim slides into the car and starts the engine.

The Taurus rattles along the dark street, probably waking people from their pre-holiday slumber. Jim can’t help a smile as he clanks into second and pats the gearshift. He loves this old car. It had crossed the country from Atlanta to San Francisco with David McCoy’s medical texts in the backseat and Eleanor McCoy’s hope chest in the trunk, already promised to Bones when he was old enough. He'd gone to Jim’s house right after he got his license and taken him out for ice cream. He taught Jim how to drive in the Taurus, too, the summer after their respective freshman years (technically before Jim was legally allowed to).

Then there was the second half of sophomore year, when everything was so awkward that he and Bones were barely speaking. Bones didn’t come home until July that summer. David McCoy had been called in for an emergency procedure on one of his patients, so he asked Jim to pick Bones up at the airport. Jim was late and Bones was already out by the drop-off by the time he arrived. He took one look at the Taurus’ shiny new paintjob and demanded to know what the hell Jim had done to his car. Jim admitted that he’d been in a teeny tiny fender bender but he’d fixed it right away, good as new - better than, considering the age of the car in question. Bones begged to differ. They bickered over the incident all the way home, and things were closer to normal than they’d been in months.

Jim doesn’t have a destination in mind, at first. He drives for a good half-hour before inspiration strikes and he makes a U-turn, causing Bones to splash water on himself.

“Oh,” Bones says softly when the Taurus finally judders to a stop. The houses of Barnett Hills rise over the development's small lake, their lights reflected in the surface of the water. The lake might be man-made, but it’s still beautiful. The lights are in Bones’ eyes too, obscuring his expression. Jim watches him for a moment before he succumbs to looking out over the still lake.

He’s about two seconds away from breaking the silence when Bones speaks.

“My father’s sick.”

Jim turns back to him. “What?”

“Cancer,” Bones says, sounding hollow. “His thyroid. He’s already had...treatment, but it came back.”

“Oh, Bones,” Jim whispers.

“So I'm sorry that I've been such an asshole. It's not about you, I'm just fucking pissed off. At everything. At my dad.” Bones’s voice cracks. “He didn’t even tell me about the first time. He had surgery and fucking _radiation_ last year and he didn’t tell me. Said he didn’t want to distract me from my studies.“ He slams his hand down on the dashboard, startling Jim and making the glove compartment rattle. “I mean, who does that? Who keeps something like that from their kid? And now it’s spread and there’s not a lot they can do and I -” He breaks off, staring out the windshield again.

Jim slides closer on the seat, reaching for Bones‘ hand without thinking about it. “God, Bones, I’m so sorry.”

Bones continues as if he hasn’t heard. It's clear that this has been building for awhile and he needs to let it out. “I just can’t stop thinking that if I had graduated a year early like he wanted, if I hadn’t dragged my ass, I’d be in med school right now and I could -”

"What?” Jim asks quietly. “Cure cancer before you even get your MD?” Bones’ eyes shift over to him, filled with shame and fear. Jim squeezes his hand. “You can't blame yourself for this, Bones. It didn't happen because you argued with him over school, or because you weren't a good son."

"I know that,” Bones says thickly, closing his eyes. His chin drops against his chest. “I just...it's my dad, you know? No matter how angry I get, no matter how much we fight - he's all I have left."

"He's not all you have left.”

Jim wishes he could say the right thing for once. He tries to. But even as he’s sitting here trying to be a comfort, he’s breathing in the scent of Bones and feeling the creases of his palm under his fingertips and wanting so badly to kiss his pale eyelids and delicate dark lashes. God, he’s a special fucking kind of selfish.

He tells himself that he’s going to let go of Bones’ hand, and he does - but Bones holds on.

Jim stays perfectly still and counts lights on the water. Colored lights, white lights, blue lights, blinking lights, icicles, tacky Santa, dashing reindeer, inflatable snow globes, ice-skating penguins -

“Jim,” Bones murmurs. His grip tightens. “Jim, look at me.”

He wants to, he does. But even after two years the memory of that night in Mississippi is as raw as the Iowa winters he barely remembers. He stares at the North Star on somebody’s rooftop until his eyes water.

It’s Bones who kisses Jim’s closed eyes, cupping his jaw and gently turning him inward. His lips are damp when he presses them to the corner of Jim’s mouth. He pulls back and it’s nothing like the last time, nothing like any of the kisses Jim has stolen because he couldn’t have this one. Jim studies him and yes, there’s still some sadness there but his face is open, wanting.

Jim breathes out slowly. He turns back to face the lake, the seat creaking beneath him. Bones laces their fingers together and rests his head on Jim’s shoulder with a faint sigh.

Jim kisses his brow, and strokes a thumb over his knuckles, and watches the Christmas lights shine across the water.

 


End file.
